2/02/2010 @ 6:00PM

Eco-Tech

Eco-Tech

Advances in solar, energy efficiency and the smart grid are taking hold in the U.S. and around the world.

The push toward a cleaner, greener world is being fueled by innovation both inside academic labs and at companies large and small. The price of solar panels has fallen dramatically, and companies are coming up with novel ways to use less energy in the first place. Here is a window onto some of the groundbreaking progress now in the works.

The scale of the industrialization that is taking place in China is so massive, and the speed with which it is taking place so fast, that it tends to obscure the positive steps that the country is taking and the progress that is being made.

If people can lose weight, buildings can slim down on energy consumption. That may sound like a bit of a stretch, but that’s how the Environmental Protection Agency framed a year-long National Building Competition it hosted among a select group of commercial and academic buildings in the race to consume less energy.